Clinical Reflection

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This week in clinical, I took care of a patient who recently had a hemiglossectomy. Due to the nature of the surgery, she had many tubes and wounds to assess and take care of. My goal coming into this week of clinical was to learn how to give meds through a standard feeding tube, empty a JP drain, and work a Doppler. I didn’t want my clinical experience to be consumed with learning the technical application, however, so an additional goal was to focus on what my patient was expressing as a need. On the first day of clinical, I mainly focused on the technical skills. Working with a client that needed so much care proved to be hectic at first. I didn’t know how to take care of her, because I have never worked with a feeding tube, JP drain, or Doppler before. There was so much that needed to be done before I even gave the patient her tube feeding. Her blood glucose needed to be checked, and then residuals. It was important to check pain before, also, so that pain medication could be given without having to stop the tube feeding. It seemed like right after I was done with …show more content…

I came into the day with a better plan of care. I organized my orders so that they were all clustered together and I didn’t have to constantly be moving from one task to the next. I was also confident that I knew how to take care of my patient. This is the day that I wanted to focus more on my client’s concerns and teaching. I think that I did well with my client teaching. I was able to help with her concern of coverage for care after discharge and taught her about her feeding tube. I think that I could have done more with teaching, however. I wish I had allowed her to be more hands on with the feeding tube, so she could get more practice with it before leaving the hospital. I know that she will get practice with the dietician, but the more practice she gets, the more comfortable she will be after the

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